


The Height of Isolation

by PrinceofHellebore (PrinceofPlants)



Series: The Cost of Isolation [1]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Drinking to Cope, Ep 152, Gen, Isolation, Quarantine, no beta we die like men, unrepentantly sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 11:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27969554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceofPlants/pseuds/PrinceofHellebore
Summary: When Zolf returns with the new scar on his temple, Oscar realizes that he would be devastated if Zolf hadn't made it.  And while Zolf is still alive, he might still be infected.
Relationships: Zolf Smith & Oscar Wilde
Series: The Cost of Isolation [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2048534
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	The Height of Isolation

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I should warn that this part doesn't have a satisfying resolution and is therefore quite sad. There is a second part planned but it isn't ready yet.
> 
> But if you like that sort of thing... enjoy.

The innkeeper, Hiroshi, was a quiet man. Oscar was never sure if that was his natural way or if the several years of raids and then the months of deluge had turned him so. Oscar supposed it might also be that he was just that poor a conversationalist in Japanese. He could communicate adequately, but it was a bare bones fluency. He’d required utility not art for once and had acquired that much in a hurry. Hiroshi came to the open door of the study Oscar had occupied for the last handful of months. 

“Sir, your friends approach.”

“Thank you, could you please prepare the baths.” Oscar sighed and stood and followed the man down the hall, turning into the main room of the inn. There were a few people there. They looked up at him and then drained the cups they had left. He didn’t even have to say anything anymore. Oscar realized before those few words to Hiroshi, he hadn’t spoken since he had sent Carter and Barnes after the others a day and a half ago. A child, ten or eleven years old, stood by the door, the innkeeper’s daughter, Miki. 

“They are far still, I saw the pink light from the edge of the village.”

“Thank you.” _At least Azu was among them then._ Oscar fought the thawing of his heart. He couldn’t yet afford it. It was still possible that he’d welcome the dead into the inn. Oscar couldn’t deny that seeing them would still be a relief, if a temporary one. He stepped up to the entrance and realized the other difference, the absence, that had been niggling at his attention for the last day. It was no longer raining. He’d gotten so used to the rhythm of it, hitting the roof, sliding down the rain chains and splashing among the rocks and puddles of the court yard, that his mind had continued to play that melody on, even after it was gone. 

From the steps of the inn, Oscar couldn’t see down the road far enough to catch the light of Azu’s armor. 

“Did they stop the rain?” Miki asked.

“I think they must have,” said Oscar.

“Is the sun going to come back?”

“Yes.” 

“That’s good,” she paused, “it will be alright.” 

It took Oscar a moment to interpret that her words weren’t inflected as a question that wanted reassurance but rather as an offering of the same… to him. It chilled him standing in the door that a child had seen the worry that he’d spent the last year ruthlessly squashing in front of his companions. 

He looked down at her upturned face and smiled, small, crookedly. “Yes, I hope that it will be.” He felt that hope rise in his chest, felt it like bile and poison. It was the thing that kept strangling him in this time, between the return of their bodies and the return of his companions. He thought he was getting better at pulling coldness over himself, burying his heart in ice and letting nothing so much as a February flower of optimism to grow. 

It wasn’t getting easier though. 

Eventually the group of horses and single camel came down the road. Oscar gently touched the child’s shoulder and with that she fled into the inn. They’d all done this enough times to know the procedures. 

Oscar stared out at his companions, dismounting now. He didn’t have to school his face to emptiness, he felt it and just opened that door and walked into the void of it. They weren’t home yet. But gods, there they were, standing there, breathing, doing small kindnesses, patting their mounts, loosening straps, unburdening them of their packs. 

Zolf handed his reins to Barnes and then stepped towards the inn.

“We need to quarantine. Lock us up and don’t touch our stuff.”

 _Need._ Oscar heard the word and it echoed through him like the striking of a bell. _Need._ They didn’t use that word unless they suspected contamination. _Need._ “Let us have a bath though."

“Yes, a bath please, gods.” Hamid was pushing up the steps past Zolf, who reached out and snagged the sleeve of his coat to stop him coming closer to Oscar. _Need._ The others always jumped up their level of precaution with it. Oscar was always there at the height of isolation. No proximity, as few words spoken as possible. Hence Zolf’s warning not to touch their things. It was a reminder that Oscar didn’t require. 

_Need. Need._ “They will have to be supervised.” _Need._

There were noises of protest from Azu. “They will be supervised or they won’t be at all.” Oscar could see that they were in want of a bath. Hamid, of course, looked immaculate but he was the only one. There was continued grumbling and Zolf turned to quell it. As he did the light from the inn fell on his temple. A gnarled scar, healed but magically so, and new to him was there. It clearly would have been a mortal wound if not for magical healing. Oscar felt a momentary and uncharacteristic pang of fear remembered. Zolf could have died… It was always a possibility, it was what they had all been dealing with for months but it chilled Oscar now in a way it never had. He always saw their new scars, if not when they bathed then upon inspection. Perhaps it was just that this was one of the few that was so obviously deadly. That was the only reason Oscar felt this horror on seeing it.

At some level this always happened when his team returned battered. It was terrible to send them out, it was terrible when they returned and could still be a different kind of dead, and then it was terrible at the end when they were still there because it meant doing it again. That puckered scar haunted him. Oscar could barely drag his eyes from it. He took a breath and pulled the cold over him again. They had survived, Zolf had survived, _why was that suddenly more important than the rest?_ Now they just had to wait and see. _Need._ Oscar wanted to ask but knew he couldn’t. He walked away from the door so that his companions could cross the room to the baths. Barnes and Carter took the mounts to the stables and then followed them. Oscar accompanied the group, hanging well back. Six people. Their prison wasn’t meant to hold that many. 

He watched indifferently as they stripped, no veins, in the stronger light he could see better the grime and ruination of Zolf’s clothes. He in particular seemed to have taken considerable damage. His leather was charred, his shirt was essentially non existent at this point. And there was the dark stain of blood following the various cuts across. A sure sign that it was Zolf’s blood even if the wounds were now absent. Barnes and Carter had similar though lesser evidence of wounds taken. But it was retro-active worry over Zolf’s well-being that Oscar was finding hard to shake. 

They bathed and filed into the basement. “There’s too many for the cell, just don’t come above the trap door.” Oscar had buried himself again, quashed his specific fear for Zolf. He held onto the cold of the grave-dirt to stop himself from thinking: _Need._

“It will have to do.” Zolf stared pointedly at Oscar’s chest. It would have been a significant shared eye contact except that was another thing that they rigorously avoided. For the first time Oscar wished they could break that precaution, just to share a look.

“It will have to do.” Oscar knew that Zolf would keep the group under a ruthless level of quarantine. Dead until proven otherwise. _Need._ Oscar couldn’t help wondering what they had encountered. _Need._ He’d have to trust. He locked the trap door and slipped the key into his pocket. _Need._ He collected a bottle of fine Japanese liquor from the nearby bar and took it to his office. He poured it and sat and didn’t drink it. _Need._ He might lose them all in one go. He might lose Zolf. The mental trick he’d used to freeze out his emotions collapsed and he wept.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> Love,  
> Prince of Hellebore


End file.
